Any small business can spend money to get noticed on Twitter. But like any online advertising, it may take a sustainable budget and specific platform expertise to see any traction. However, there are many ways to use Twitter marketing to boost your digital marketing efforts without spending a cent. These six Twitter marketing strategies may be a good place to start.
Find Your Peeps Using Twitter Marketing
Before you start tweeting, consider listening first. Who are the customers, prospects and referral sources that are discussing the pain your company solves? You can use advance search to further target the list by typing in what your company does to see what people are saying and find the influencers you may want to start following. In addition, you may want to pair your email list with Twitter profiles using Audiense to identify who you should follow.
Build Lists
It is impossible to keep track of what your entire Twitter stream is saying. One way to make your timeline easier to digest is by building Twitter lists that target specific groups to see each of their tweets. These can be people who have specific pain types that match your product offerings. You may also want to consider creating a list just to track your competitors' tweets!
Say One Thing
When a follower sees your handle in their Twitter stream, what is the one message you want them to think about? It's helpful to have your profile reflect the brand you want to project. Think about using hashtags to see all the people interested in the topics you're tweeting about. (For example, my company uses hashtags like #smallbiz #entrepreneur #unstuck.) It may help you build up new followers. Tools like Ritetag can automatically attach relevant hashtags to your tweets. (It can also create images—see the next Twitter marketing strategy to see why this may be helpful.)
Get the Picture
Using visually compelling photos in your tweets may raise the odds of them getting noticed. There are tools that can help you create images for your Twitter account, such as Canva, Recite This and PicMonkey. Twitter now also supports GIFs; you may want to add these fun moving images to your tweets, too.
Give a Call
What do you want your followers to do when they see your message? You may want more than a retweet. One of the best ways to engage Twitter users is to ask a question or for guidance. For example, if you’re a realtor, a tweet can be “How did you find your home inspector when you sold your last home?” You can also offer a client attraction device to get their email address and start an online campaign to them. For example, I offer followers my white paper “25 Ways to Get Your Business Unstuck” when they sign up at my site.
Have a Twitter Marketing Plan
To effectively use Twitter marketing, your messages need to be tweeted about 30 times a day since this social media tool moves very fast. A study conducted by social analytics provider Wiselytics shows that a second tweet can get as much as 86 percent of the engagement as the original message. Typically, tweets should be grouped into campaigns. One effective way to do this is to use a content management tool like Hootsuite or Meet Edgar to manage and schedule each week’s tweets and track results.
What have effective strategies have you found for your Twitter marketing?
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